Until our hearts explode
by yourcloudnine
Summary: Asuka couldn't help but think about eating an acid apple, chewing it. And then passing into Mari's mouth; a kiss of death. Inspired by Danger Days by My Chemical Romance. This story focuses on Mari and Asuka's partnership, but it pans out to cover everything around them. Plot will thicken into something familiar soon.
1. i know you know me well enough to know t

Chapter one / **Danger Days AU**.

Words: 1,260

_In this chapter, they're 16 and their partnership's just weeks fresh. Huge thanks to rad-megucas for pushing me to write! Fruity. Here's Mari and Asuka as Killjoys._

* * *

This is it; they're fucked up.

Mari's holding her gun on her left hand and her bomb on the other, and Asuka's just gripping her gun so hard the paint's cracking beneath her nails, clinging to the palms of her gloves. Then she snarls.

"Mari, take the ones with blue and I take the ones with red," Asuka whispers and inhales, her feet shuffling to a better stance.

"Wait they all have that colo-"

Asuka shoots a goon right between the eyes and it falls; breaking the circle and breaking the silent tension in the air. Metal and flesh splats to the ground and Mari starts to yell at nothing as she shifts her body to the side, her feet colliding with the goons with the motor oil dripping off its mouth.

Oh yeah, Asuka's kind of color-blind in bad situations… black and white, red and blue.

Mari moves her gun to the side of the motor-oil-mouthed goon and pulls the trigger, grunting as she feels the air behind her shift.

"You really leave your partner like that? What, you really want me dusted that bad? Cool, I trusted you."

And Asuka yells back with a dry throat, "no, you dumbass! I'm going to finish this!"

Mari just sees dust behind Asuka, and she loses her focus.

She feels a goon punch her gut, and one bit her arm and tore the clothes off of it. She feels oil; she feels blood on the exposed skin.

But the cold mechanical teeth are prominent…

Asuka shifts to DRIVE and stomps on the gas pedal. Her gun's reloaded now, she has bombs, and she has what she could use to bring them to hell.

Asuka sees fresh blood on the teeth of the goons. She panics, she panics.

She turns the car a bit and her foot applies pressure on the gas.  
—

Asuka stares at the sand. There was one time when Misato and Ritsuko told them that the earth and its creatures were built on red earth. Red dirt; like bloodied soil. It's the color of blood.

Asuka hates seeing this, seeing Mari bleed.

Seeing Mari with her skin so bare, damaged, so, too raw.

The sand beneath Mari's just too red, it's shaking her nerves.

Asuka kneels down and moves her hand under Mari's legs and slithers the other under Mari's spine, and she lifts. She almost fails; almost. She caught Mari's arm and other leg just soon enough.

She really was never too good at handling other people and their heavy bones, heavy organs, and their heavy lives…

But she has always loved the color red.

Asuka pokes at her paste meal. Who knew instant ramen would be something she'd miss?

She'd rather watch the _Ikaris_ live than eat this.

But, like Mari said; 'It's for your own good! Think about me! Who will be my partner?'

But unlike every fucking one of the crew, Asuka doesn't think that the normal people's foods are acid-laced.

But still. She's going to eat this slop. Just not now, she has yet to get over the initial disgust.

She looks down to the foot of the bed and sees a dark strap peeking out from under the sheet.

Asuka's curiosity knocks and she bends down and tugs it out, only to find something she hasn't seen in a while; her violin.

She stares. Has it been under her bed all this time?

(Even if it was, there was never a time when she had the courage to look under her bed. Monsters reside under her, and those monsters only bring back wide, blue eyes looking down at her and the feeling of hands on her neck, _squeezing_. Those eyes used to be so clear and decisive; and Asuka would curl into herself. Those monsters are her own.)

She lifts it and drops it on her lap; the dust floats up and she coughs, waving her hand in front of her face. So much dust, it reminds one of ashes.

She sweeps the dust to the ground and flicks her hand to get rid of the dust sticking to her gloves. She looks to what's in front of her; her partner.

"Don't wake up right now, okay four-eyes?"

She removes her gloves, and then pulls off the Velcro lock on the violin case, trying to be as quiet as possible. She unzips it and opens, her eyes seeing it's reflection on the violin. It's filled with fingerprints and little fibers; it's not as shiny as it was. Her bow is loose, and the horse hair is dusty and sticky when she slides her thumb on it.

"I'm not playing for you."

She unlocks the restraints and lifts it to her collarbone. It's just a little bit too small, and the top string is a little out of tune, but she's not in the perfect condition right now, either. So, she puts her chin on the rest and tightens her bow, and she tries to play a tune; a lullaby.

—

Asuka hears skin slapping on skin and her reflexes act fast; dropping the violin down and looking for her gun. Her hands travel to her holster, and she breathes when she feels the cracking paint. She grabs it and stands up, and looks behind her. She points her gun straight to the door.

It's still going.

She panics, thinking about how maybe it's in her head. Maybe it's there. she deems herself too young to be a lunatic, but then again, she's 16 and she's living with a bunch of rebels in a crapsack world… It's in her head, it's like thunder in a storm-

But then she hears the ring of Mari's laughter in her ears and she turns to look at the bed.

"Hmm, you forgot the noises that indicate human life and approval again," Mari says, smiling right at her. Her still intact arm swung up and her fingers pry open the glasses in her hand, fitting it slowly on her face. The feline smile creeps in slowly.

Asuka groans and slams herself down the seat again, her brows furrowed as Mari giggles.

"I sacrificed my car back there and you just laugh, okay." Asuka says, her voice laced with a snarl.

"Wait shit, seriously? Well I lost like, half of my upper arm here because my partner left me in a battle, 'cause she was trying to prove herself. Please hold." Mari says with a tone that makes her sound like she really didn't feel bad, like she's the one saying sorry.

Asuka feels like something in her stomach got tied up then sunk at its own weight. Maybe it's her intestines. Her face reacts with an angry expression, though.

"Your lullaby was nice though. Good apology."

Asuka's eyes snap to Mari, just when she noticed that she was looking at her own fidgeting hands.

"It wasn't for you! Unhear it!"

"Hah, really. Then who were you playing for here?"

"No one! Myself!" Asuka spits, her feet planted flat on the ground.

"I'll accept that. One condition though," Mari turns her head a little bit more to look at Asuka more sharply, "let me be your partner. Don't leave me like that."

Asuka swore, really. When Mari recovers from that wound, she's going to put acid in her ears, and maybe in her mouth. This girl only "knew" her for two years and she's getting under her skin, her layers. It ticks in her head like a clock that never moves.

Asuka couldn't help but think about eating an acid apple, chewing it. And then passing into Mari's mouth; a kiss of death.


	2. And I know you well enough to know that

Notes: The goons look like sick pale human bodies with MP evas for heads. Actually scarier than the Danger Days videos, less creepy than the MP evas. They wear draculoid suits, though. They snarl and make noises like the MP evas too. Quite creeps.

In this chapter we have heavily implied DEATH OF WELL-LOVED CHARACTERS and graphic imagery GORE and uh, CHOKING STRANGLING AND STUFF! That was a warning, yeah. And a bit of info on why exactly the goons get motor oil and blood on their mouths. This is set like 11 days after the last chapter. Yes, Ritsuko is an NB. YEAH! I did it! Go me!

* * *

"You're seriously not going to do anything about my car?" Asuka grunts, her hand clenching, crumpling the letter in her hand. The other one holds the phone. Her eyes are closed and her teeth gritting.

"Yes. You trashed yours and," Ritsuko pauses, and clears their throat," and the only way to use it is to merge it with Mari's car. You do know that you flattened half of her tires, right?"

Asuka grows silent. Mari leans off the beds' headboard and studies Asuka's face, good arm swaying down and sweeping the floor; Asuka's body is rigid, and Ritsuko talks again. Asuka's still just taking it in and not speaking.

Mari moves her injured arm to Asuka's knee, tapping it with her fingertips. It seems like it brought back Asuka from herself and she gasps as she looks down.

"Yes, okay Vice-captain," Asuka murmurs into the phone, her hands' bones unlocking slowly, making her grip lighter.

"Can I speak to Mari, too?"

Asuka hums in response and hands it over, sighing as Mari took it. She plops down the bed, her head resting on Mari's kneecap and her hands let go of the paper. She hears Mari hum into the phone and feels Mari's bandaged hand find her naked ones. She stares at the ceiling.

She never realized that Mari's hands got injured.

"So, you joined our cars so we could be better partners?"

Asuka's eyes widen and she sits up, her brows knitted together as Mari nods at whatever Ritsuko is telling her.

She thinks a what the hell and a wasn't two years enough trust training, but the heavy, heavy feelings in her stomach get even heavier as she remembers exactly why they're testing their partnership.

Asuka left Mari behind in the middle of a battle.

Her eye looks down at her hands to see one gloved hand, still crumbling an already beaten-up yet pristine piece of paper. She tries to open it up but every joint seems to have locked.

Then she feels the familiar scrape of nails at the back of her jacket and she feels her knuckles free up and sees the white gain color.

"We have a mission! First mission for like," Mari pauses, leans in and rests her chin on Asuka's left shoulder, "10 days? Something like that."

Asuka could feel the heavy feeling float up to her chest little by little, banging on the bottom of her heart. But then the feeling disappears; like rocks rolling away after hitting her. She coughs it out and she rises, dusting off her jacket.

"Let's go. Which desert?"

Mari flips the sheets off her legs, sweeping them to the ground. She swings her legs to the edge of the bed, and then her right arm, her uninjured one, pushes her weight up for her to stand upright.

Asuka's feels shakier on her stable legs than Mari right now. She feels like she's the one to collapse, watching this. Mari's supposed to be the stronger one.

Asuka sprints to Mari's side, her hands finding Mari's waist to help her up.

"The one near your school," Mari says after she stopped wobbling on her spot, smiling. "Whoa! Not walking at all for like 10 days sure is scary… I lost all sensation of my legs for a while there."

"I can't imagine. Come on," Asuka whispers in a monotone. She's pulling away.

"You don't say?" Mari retorts as she pulls Asuka back, "I mean, I surely don't recall me carrying you around while Misato and Ritsuko were busy with WILLE-building…"

Asuka huffs and looks away to her side, hands still at Mari's waist. Mari leaves it up to actions to speak for her.

She swings her two hands to Asuka's shoulders, smiling at her as she rests their weight there. She bumps her forehead on the top of Asuka's eyepatch. Asuka's eye flicks back to Mari.

"You're trying to make me feel guilty?" Asuka inquires, biting the inside of her cheek.

"No, I'm just saying! Equivalent exchange," Mari leans in closer until their noses touch. "It's still a thing, so is appreciation."

Asuka sighs and her eyes wander down Mari's lips.

"You never answered my offer," Mari speaks in a hushed voice, her fingers playing with Asuka's hair. "Will you ever let me be your partner?"

"You already are; what could I do about it?" Asuka half-groans, but her hands lock at Mari's waist.

"Relax, let me help you." Mari's delivery is firm; and Asuka doesn't want to grip on it.

"I'll let go of you and let you fall back."

"Have to drag you down with me, Princess."

—

Pink and red doesn't really blend well in Asuka's mind.

She sees sick, dark brown and it looks like shit, and she's kind of scared of that.

Mari says in a sing-song voice that everything's okay and that the paintjob will **probably **look better than expected and it will be**completely **fine, but Asuka says that the red will ruin it and make things look terrible, ugly and blotched. Like the scar on her face; Hideous.

Mari still walks on, supporting herself a bit with her uninjured arm. The pink will make it look harmless, she says.

They reach the hall to the exit and the thick automatic door opens, the harsh and hot wind blowing on their skin and to their hair, making it whip back to the thick hard metal walls. Their eyes meet Ritsuko, standing infront of their car. They're holding the key and a piece of paper.

"Asuka drives today, by Misato's orders. You two have to go check out the situation at Zone 23, I heard that the Suzuhara and Aida found something. No signs of acid winds today."

—

"Why do you have bandages on your hand, anyway?" Asuka asks, her breath hitching after speaking it out. She looks off out her window, not expecting an answer.

"Tried to hide it," Mari sighs out, "but I guess it's too late, huh."

Asuka just nods as her frown deepens.

"I got it about 15 days ago. I tried to bake you a cake, seriously."

She turns the wheel to the left, her foot steeping on the gas a bit too heavily. Mari holds on to the dashboard tight.

"What, why the hell are you even…" Mari mutters under her breath when Asuka stomps on the brake.

"You could've at least told me. I don't even need a cake; I told you I don't celebrate my birthday," Asuka huffs as the sand around the cars floats down, her brows knit together, "right?"

Mari sits upright and bends back a bit, then exhales as she hunches forward again.

"You deserve to, though."

Asuka presses down on the gas and steers out back to the road, her hand tight on the gear.

—

They reached Zone 23 in silence, only Mari's little humming and the roar of the car's engines could be heard.

And a little buzzing could be heard, which makes Asuka's palms itch and sweat.

"They're near. Probably behind the school," Asuka whispers, biting the inside of her cheek.

It's barely a school now, really. The sand has buried it, making only the windows of the second floor and up visible. They warned the civilians, all the others that believed in their little rebel group, the people that didn't let themselves lose their individuality, to never even go near places just because they want to reminiscence some shit that will never come back to them. It's incredibly annoying to find old men like Kaji sitting around where his old garden used to be, now buried under hot dark sand and chunks of concrete and bones, getting his arms bitten off by all those monstrosities.

But you can't blame them from ever going back, right? Mari said once, they all have nothing left, they only have their lives.

Asuka always scoffs, almost saying so do I, I only have myself.

Mari would say that she is strong, and Asuka just couldn't hold on to it.

She hears a click beside her and she snaps her head to Mari's seat. Mari just stepped out of the car, gun in her injured hand. She then runs to the back of the school.

"You… Four-eyes!" Asuka yells, opening her door as her hand slides to her gun. Why does Mari have to want to fight like this?

Asuka runs fast to catch up, but then freezes up when she sees the scene.

Mari's shooting down 7 big goons that have bloody heads with things hanging from their mouths. Intestines? They look like it- they look like guts.

There's so much fresh blood on the sand, bones with flesh still stuck on them scattered all around. There lays a spine and some dark-skinned feet with so much blood splatted on them, along with a broken baseball bat, cracked glasses, and also three goons down and disabled.

And torn-up pieces of dark blue just like thrash confetti.

She feels sick but she pulls the safety off her gun, running off on red sand to blast some metal skull; it's going to be their guts on the sand next.

—

"Why the," Mari inhales and runs toward the goon biting Suzuhara's car, "fuck are you so interested in that?"

Mari hits it on the head with the back of her gun and then repeatedly shoots it at the nape of its neck, kicking it to the spine.

Asuka, on the other hand, just shot the last goon she's facing at the chest and at the eyes, panting. Mari made her take out 4 goons, but Mari still fired at every goon that got behind her.

Isn't that trust?

She looks at Mari's direction, but her eye caught view of something in the car; she could make out small hands that are pressed against it from the inside, even when the windows are covered with blood.

"Four-eyes! Someone's inside the car!" Asuka says, the words haunting her. She's getting goosebumps under the layers of her tight clothes.

"Damn, really? Shit I have to," Mari's uninjured hand slides to the front of the goon and then she pushes it aside, shooting right in the middle off its chest.

Asuka rushes fast to the passengers' side of the car and wipes the blood off with her hand, cringing so. She finds a young girl with brown hair with a blue jacket draped on her. She's curled up into herself, her cheeks are wet and her brows are furrowed, like she's having a bad dream.

The light from the blood and the sun makes the image even morenostalgic for Asuka, and her stomach turns like she's going to hurl, but she clenches her fist and pulls out her knife; wedging it to the side of the door, trying to pry it open while her good eye stings.

She could feel Mari behind her and she just tries harder to open it, but the knife is breaking and she's not going to-

It breaks, and Asuka's hands beat frantically at the mirror at the backseats, but the glass just sits there, stubbornly not cracking.

Asuka pulls her gun out and hits the glass with the handle angrily, grunting as she opens the door. She reaches out to the lock of the passenger side and pulls on it. Mari slides to scoop up the kid, the hair infront of her face covering her face.

"Your arms are injured, I'll do that." Asuka states, brows furrowed as she follows Mari away. Asuka notes all the blotches of blood on Mari's bandages, fresh and messy; growing slowly. She notices Mari's eyes flick to her eye, and Asuka tries to speak, but Mari shakes her head and smiles down at the kid; sighing.

"Later, she's asleep."

Asuka runs silently to open the door to the back seats of their car.

"You think we should bring her to headquarters?" Mari whispers when she placed the kid down the seat, her eyes still on the kid.

Asuka wipes her bloody, naked hand on her pants and she removes the jacket, looking for scars on the little girl. She feels light when she doesn't find a scratch.

But the girl moves her hands around, brows furrowing more. She's mumbling until her hands found the jacket. She weeps into it and curls further into herself as she cradles it.

Asuka looks at Mari, eyes red and throat dry. Mari's looking at the child with sympathy and something Asuka couldn't comprehend. Care? Maybe, Asuka notices that Mari's eyes are growing red, too, but she's still wearing a small smile.

Asuka doesn't understand at all how Mari smiles in these situations, but she never tries to get it.

Mari hits the back of Asuka's hand with the back of her own lightly, her gaze shifting from the kid to Asuka's shoulder. Asuka gulps and tries to speak.

"Yeah, she needs to get her wounds healed."

The paintjob just dried and the lines between red and pink mixed into something odd, but fitting.

—

"Mama! Hold on! I'll," Asuka chokes on her words; her tears threatening to fall down her cheeks, but her little hands touch the boulder and she pushes. Her eyes blur as the boulder stays stubbornly still.

Asuka roots her feet to the loose sand and she forces her bones, muscles, and world to work with her.

"I'll get you out of there!"

Kyoko doesn't move an inch, she only stares at her child with blank eyes through her hair, and Asuka just pushes on the boulder still, whimpering and sliding down when it finally budges off her mother's legs.

Asuka runs to her mother, her sandals giving up on her. She kneels at her mother's head, her red, dirty hands moving to Kyoko's ears, to hug her.

"Mama, are you alright-"

Kyoko pushes herself up with her hands to go forward; hitting her head on Asuka's.

Mothers' hands aren't soft. Callouses press against her skin harshly as her mother holds her by the throat, squeezing. There's a rare smile on Kyoko's face, blood seeping through her mouth, down her lips. The glasses Kyoko wears slide off her nose down to the bridge of Asuka's nose.

It hurts; Asuka couldn't explain the feeling of this breathless, bloodless rush. Her vision fades from blue angry eyes and blurry painful orange of the sun to a quick, squishy mesh of colors. They all fall to black, but the drops of striking red that's dripping on the glasses makes her spin.

It's scary, it's so hot and her senses are giving up…

—

Asuka hears a loud hit; and the blood rushes back up her head. That sounded like metal to skin and bones; it just does.

"Kid! Let's go!" Asuka hears, and then she feels the heavy weight off of her lower body and one of her arms get pulled up. Her eyes open and the harsh, bleary light of the sun make her close her eyes back. She's on her knees now, the person who pulled her up still holding her arm.

"I don't want to die," Asuka whispers as her head bows. Her tears fall free, and she opens her eyes. Her mother's down, flat on her face. There's so much red.

The person tugged her up and lifted Asuka up to sling her on their shoulder. This woman has violet hair and sadness in her eyes.

* * *

Notes: If the Evas eat Angels for S2 engines, the goons eat humans for their guts. Why the cars? Nobody knows why, still.

Also, it's very normal for Mari to be this sweet to Asuka; it's just that Asuka actually gives a pretty solid reaction to it in this chapter. Oh yeah, and Kensuke died too, I guess. Sorry that I killed KenToji… atleast, from what you know… Asuka in the flashback is around 9 or 10 years of age. This chapter went a bit better than expected… Thank Madoka, maybe next chapter we could get some flashbacks and plot drive… Maybe something else, you never know with me, yo. I'm a very busy kid. (laughs)


End file.
